


The Last Sorcerer

by lolo313



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 06:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2612408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolo313/pseuds/lolo313
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was easier as a tree, Merlin found. Everything hurt less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Sorcerer

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired in part from the canonical myth of Merlin and, of course, Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn". It's a fantastic story from which I drew a few lines. If you haven't, please give it a read.

            It was easier as a tree, Merlin found. Everything hurt less. True, squirrels would tickle his limbs with their furry feet, and at times an idle passerby would pluck leaves from his hair, but these were passing concerns at best. Days bled into months into years into decades into centuries.

            He hardly ever thought of Arthur anymore. True, in the beginning, when he was a man _when had he been a man how long ago_ Arthur was all he thought about. Never eating, never sleeping, yet never dying Merlin had wandered Albion, watching it transform before his eyes. Every hillock, every stone, called memories of Arthur to mind. At first Merlin held out hope that Arthur would rise again soon. He counted days with religious devotion. Waited.

            Though kingdoms came and went, armies raged and swallowed each other whole, nothing stirred Arthur from his slumber. Slowly, like a cracking chrysalis, the world morphed into something unrecognizable. Instead of castles, monoliths of wood, then steel and glass rose round him _where are the castes Arthur must have a castle_ and the tongues of man wagged in incomprehensible speech. Merlin thought for sure he’d gone mad.

            But in his grief Merlin had been oblivious to the shifting nature of the world around him. Simply put—life had moved on without Arthur, a task that, despite all his power, Merlin could not do.

            People began to notice the men—for there were two, one old and one young—who waited by the lake, backs bent, faces dipped low, peering across the lucid, shimmering surface. Talk ran among the towns. Rumors. Fears. Once, two men in blue _knights they were knights they had to be_ tried to take Merlin away, telling him they had a nice home for him, all cozy and wouldn’t he please come with them.

            Merlin knew he couldn’t wait any more, at least not as he was. He cast no spell, none that he could remember. All he felt was dirt, soft and moist, between his toes as his spine elongated and grew rigid, and his fingers thinned and widened and turned green.

            At first Merlin was terrified and tried to undo what he had done. But though his magic was still there, coursing through his roots, he couldn’t tap into it. Where once it thrummed, now it hummed. But at least now Merlin could wait and watch the lake.

            People left him alone now too, for the most part. Once, a man with a loud, whirring, spinning blade had come and tried to cut him down, but when he saw the light dancing through Merlin’s arms he remembered how much he loved his wife and ran home to kiss her. Sometimes lovers would come and sit beneath him, resting their backs against his. When this happened, Merlin would shake and leaves would tumble down upon them like rain.

            Beyond all things, he remembered Arthur. His smile. His laugh. The weight of him in his arms, clothes sodden, that final day. It was in thinking of Arthur, of their days together, that Merlin felt most himself. That he could recall, with sharp clarity, the joy of his previous life. He would keep the color of Arthur’s eyes when no one else alive even remembered his name. There is no immortality like a tree’s love.

            But Arthur never rose. Not yet. And Merlin’s trunk grew thick and heavy and scarred from initials. His roots dug deep, and summer passed to winter passed to summer. Everything seemed so temporary—except for his lack. Whole seasons passed, stretches at a time, when Merlin hardly thought of his old life at all. When he would start to forget he’d been anything before, ever been anything but a tree, growing strong.

            Till a man would walk by—not even someone who resembled Arthur all that much. But there was always something. The blond sheen of his hair. His stature, or build. The broad comfort of his shoulders. And Merlin would remember, would remember everything, and miss his eyes for want of weeping.

            So he waited. And waited. Watched the world harden and crack like an acorn, churning forth metal, magnetic magic. Till the day Arthur would rise and unite all of Albion. Till the day he’d come back to him.

            If Merlin had learned anything from his time as a tree, it was this: if flowers could teach themselves to bloom after winter, so could he.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading.


End file.
